389   ERRORS OF AUTHORS 
 
 
that he was the son of Margawse (Arthur's 
sister and Lot's wife, pt. i. 36). 
  King Lot... wedded Margawse; Nentres... 
wedded Elain.-Sir T. Malory, History of Prince 
Arthur, i. 2, 35, 36. 
  In the same Idyll Tennyson has changed 
Lion&s to Lyonors; but, according to the 
collection of romances edited by Sir T. 
Malory, these were quite different persons. 
Lion~s, daughter of Sir Persaunt, and 
sister of Linet of Castle Perilous, married 
Sir Gareth (pt. i. 153); but Lyonors was 
the daughter of Earl Sanam, and was the 
unwedded mother of Sir Borre by King 
Arthur (pt. i. 15). 
  Again, Tennyson makes Gareth marry 
Lynette, and leaves the true heroine, 
Lyonors, in the cold; but the History 
makes Gareth marry Lion~s (Lyonors), 
and Gaheris his brother marries Linet. 
  Thus endeth the history of Sir Gareth, that 
wedded Dame Lion~s of the Castle Perilous; 
and also of Sir Gaheris, who wedded her sister 
Dame Linet.-Sir T. Malory, History of Prince 
Arthur (end of pt. i.). 
  Again, in    Gareth  and  Lynette, by 
erroneously beginning day with sunrise 
instead of the previous eve, Tennyson 
reverses the order of the knights, and 
makes the fresh green morn represent the 
decline of day, or, as he calls it, "Hes- 
perus" or "Evening Star;" and the blue 
star of evening he makes "Phosphorus" 
or the "Morning Star." 
  Once more, in Gareth and Lynette, the 
poet-laureate makes the combat between 
Gareth and Death finished at a single 
blow, but in the History, Gareth fights 
from dawn to dewy eve. 
  Thus they fought [froom sunrise] till it was 
past noon, and would not stint, till at last both 
lacked wind, and then stood they wagging, stag- 
gering, panting, blowing, and bleeding... and 
when they had rested them awhile, they went to 
battle again, trasing, rasing, and foyning, as two 
boars. . . Thus they endured till evening-song 
 
 
time.-Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, 
i. 136. 
  In the Last Tournament, Tennyson makes 
Sir Tristram stabbed to death by Sir Mark 
in Tintag'il Castle, Cornwall, while toying 
with his aunt, Isolt the Fair, but in the 
History he was in bed in Brittany, severely 
wounded, and dies of a shock, because his 
wife tells him the ship in which he expected 
his aunt to come was sailing into port 
with a black sail instead of a white one. 
  The poet-laureate has deviated so often 
from the collection of tales edited by Sir 
Thomas Malory, that it would occupy too 
much space to point out his deviations 
even in the briefest manner. 
  THACKERAY, in Vanity Fair, has taken 
from Sir Walter Scott his allusion to 
Bedredeen, and not from the Arabian 
Nights. He has, therefore, fallen into the 
same error, and added two more. He says: 
"I ought to have remembered the pepper 
which the Princess of Persia puts into the 
cream-tarts in India, sir" (ch. iii.). The 
charge was that Bedredeen made his 
cheese-cakes without putting pepper into 
them. But Thackeray has committed in 
this allusion other blunders. It was not a 
"princess" at all, but Bedredeen Hassan, 
who for the nonce had become a confec- 
tioner. He learned the art of making 
cheese-cakes from his mother (a widow). 
Again, it was not a "princess of Persia," 
for Bedredeen's mother was the widow of 
the vizier of Balsora, at that time quite 
independent of Persia. 
  VICTOR HUGO, in Les Travailleurs de la 
Mer, renders "the Frith of Forth" by the 
phrase  Premier   des  quatre, mistaking 
"Frith" for first, and "Forth" for fourth 
or four. 
  In his Marie Tudor he refers to the 
"History and Annals of Henry VII. par 
Franc Baronum," meaning "Historia, etc., 
 
 
ERRORS OF AUTHORS